


Strange Happenings at the Deacon Brothers' Bar

by WingedFlight



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Walk Into A Bar, don't you forget about deacon, memories of an alternate timeline or two (or three or four or...)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedFlight/pseuds/WingedFlight
Summary: Teddy Deacon would really love it if these weirdos would stop walking into his bar.
Relationships: James Cole/Cassandra Railly, Katarina Jones/Elliot Jones
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Strange Happenings at the Deacon Brothers' Bar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [killabeez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/gifts).



_Won't you come see about me?_ _  
__I'll be alone, dancing, you know it, baby._ _  
_

* * *

The Deacon Brothers’ Bar isn’t busy when the crazy old lady shows up. It’s a Tuesday afternoon, which somehow always seems to be the time that the weird ones come in, but Teddy is still caught off-guard by the woman spinning a giddy circle on her stool. She’s got a very witchy aesthetic going on, absolutely curtained in black silks and laces of all sorts. Plus, she cackles when she sees him. Teddy’s pretty sure he’s never heard anyone actually  _ cackle _ before. 

“One margarita,” she requests in a voice that either trembles or warbles, he can’t quite tell. “No! A strawberry daiquiri. It’s a daiquiri kind of day, I can feel it. Can you make it with raspberries?” 

She isn’t the first totally-off-her-rocker customer he’s served but Teddy still has to stop and digest whatever the hell is going on in front of him. “A strawberry daiquiri,” he says slowly, “but with raspberries?” 

“Yes!” 

Just to clarify, because you never know with these types, he asks further: “So a raspberry daiquiri?” 

“Deacon, my friend,” she says happily, “You’ve got it exactly.” 

She says this like she knows him, even though it’s definitely the first time he’s ever seen her come into the establishment. Still, not like it’s a stretch for her to guess he’s one of the Deacon Brothers mentioned on the sign, given he’s the only person behind the bar at the moment. So Teddy gives her a nod and starts mixing. 

“It’s a been a long time, you know,” says the lady when he slides the cocktail in front of her. 

Teddy raises an eyebrow. “Since you had a daiquiri?” 

Her laugh falls somewhere between a snort and another cackle. “No!” she chortles. “Since the good ol’ days, silly. They’d be starting right around now, you know.” 

“Ah.” He’s not following in the slightest, and he’s pretty sure the lady knows this and doesn’t care. “Enjoy your drink,” he adds, as if she isn’t already heartily downing the cocktail, and starts to move away. 

She lowers the glass abruptly. “Wait! Deacon! Before you go!” 

Reluctantly, Teddy stops. “I’m not leaving,” he assures her, tipping a thumb over his shoulder towards the door to the back room. “Just grabbing some more ice.” 

The woman cackle-snorts again. “Oh right, the ice. Go on.” And she waves both hands, shooing him off. 

“Absolutely bonkers,” Teddy mutters to himself as he passes into the back room. Behind him, the woman is laughing again as she continues oh-so-enthusiastically enjoying her drink. 

He’s busy for a little while after that. First there’s the ice, then a couple of regulars come in looking for their usual beers, then there’s a spill to wipe up. But at last, Teddy’s feet carry him over to the weird woman again. She’s finished her daiquiri and drums her hands against the counter to catch his attention. 

“Another?” asks Teddy. 

She ignores the question. “Deacon! I have something for you.” 

“A large tip, I hope.” 

_ Giggle-snort-giggle. _ “Better than that.” And before he can quite comprehend what this old lady is up to, she whips out from under all her laces and silks a huge-ass hunting knife. 

And slams it down point first into the smooth-finished oak of his bar. 

“Hey!” shouts Teddy. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

The old bat has the audacity to wave jazz-hands at him. “Ta-da!” she sings. “Took an awful lot of work to hunt  _ that _ down.” 

Even though Teddy’s not exactly a stranger to knives, this is the most serious blade he’s ever seen. He has no clue how an old woman like her managed to get her hands on something as dangerous as this. There’s just something about it that means business: maybe the dirty rag around its hilt, or the mean-looking serrated edge of the blade. 

Or maybe it’s just the sense that he  _ knows _ this knife, somehow. 

But that’s just the lady’s crazy getting in his head. Teddy rolls his eyes, takes hold of the hilt, and pulls the knife free of the bar. “Jennifer,” he growls. “We  _ just _ had this counter refinished. I don’t need your knives in it.” 

She beams at him. “Not  _ my _ knife. It’s yours. I’m just giving it back to you.” 

The weapon feels disturbingly  _ right  _ in his hand. Teddy ignores the feeling, dropping the knife onto the counter behind him where it’s safely out of any customer’s reach. “I’ve never seen this thing before in my life,” he tells her. “You’re mistaken.” 

“You so sure about that?” 

He is getting so tired of her bullshit. “I swear to you, lady, I ain’t never seen you before. I wouldn’t know you from Eve.”

The woman looks absolutely thrilled at his declaration. She hops down from her stool and sings, “Deacon, if you’ve never seen me before, how’d you know my name?”

And she dances out of the bar without waiting for Teddy to string together any sort of plausible explanation. She leaves the wicked-looking hunting knife behind, along with a ginormous tip. 

* * *

There’s always been strange customers coming in and out of Deacon Brothers’. All bars have them: regulars and one-offs alike, with odd stories or mannerisms. Nate says they’re the patrons that keep the job interesting. Teddy just tries not to roll his eyes whenever they come in. 

But for the most part, there’s a pattern to their strangeness--a pattern the Jennifer lady didn’t fit. When Teddy mentions the encounter to his brother that night, showing off the gouge in the counter, Nate just laughs it off. “It’s a bar,” he says, “You can’t expect the wood finish to last for long.”

Which is absolutely not the point but Teddy doesn’t bother to explain further. It’s not so much the fact that a crazy lady stabbed his counter with a hunting knife, it’s that the knife  _ means _ something to him (even if he can’t figure out  _ what _ or  _ why _ ). Plus, there’s the question of however the fuck he knew her name when he absolutely, definitely, most certainly would remember if he’d seen someone so batshit before. 

But the worst part? 

She’s only the first. 

* * *

The couple are an odd pair, but nothing to write home about. They’re laughing as they come in, stomping snow off their boots and blowing on their hands before choosing a table near the window. The man has apparently made it all the way through the mild snowstorm without losing the pencil tucked behind his ear. This is, apparently, absolutely fucking hilarious to them both. 

Due to that same snowstorm, business has been slow all day. Teddy gives the couple a minute to settle in before heading over. He barely manages to ask the usual “And what can I get you folks today?” before the woman looks up and beams. 

“Mister Deacon!” she exclaims in a thick accent that makes her sound like the original Terminator. “You have no idea how pleased I am to see you here.” 

Teddy’s heart sinks. Somehow, he  _ knows _ she isn’t simply excited to meet the bar’s proprietor. But  _ don’t scare the patrons  _ is a rule Nate’s worked hard to drill into his head, so Teddy flashes her the good ol’ customer service smile and says, “Sure.” 

It’s not the most inspired answer but the woman laughs delightedly and orders a bottle of red for the couple to share. Her husband offers a quick thank-you before turning back to the woman to launch into some type of scientific mumbo-jumbo. He uses the pencil from behind his ear to start sketching a diagram onto one of the paper napkins. 

So. Odd couple, but not  _ too _ odd. Teddy’s met the occasional scientist in the past; he’s overheard incomprehensible techno-babble before. They think they know him--what of it? The only real reason he feels unsettled around them is… well, the fact that he feels unsettled around them. No real reason at all. Just his nerves working overtime. 

So he provides them with the wine and two glasses and a stack of extra napkins to draw on for good measure. 

And that would be the end of it, except for the way he catches the woman peering at him over the top of her wine glass later that evening. And when the couple leaves, they take all the napkins with them except one. 

_ Thank you, Mister Deacon, _ reads the tight script, and Teddy wonders why he feels like the message refers to more than a single bottle of red wine. 

* * *

_Will you recognize me?_ _  
__Call my name or walk on by?_ _  
__Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling_ _  
__Down--_

* * *

The spring of ‘46 is a wet and miserable affair. Teddy spends more time mopping the floors of all the tracked in mud than pouring out drinks for the regulars. There’s an awful lot of talk about job security and unions these days, and everyone’s pinching their pennies just a little tighter than usual. 

So when the gentleman in the expensive pea coat enters, Teddy takes notice. There’s an air of refined wealth about the man: not just his clothes, but the confidence with which he stands and looks about the place before choosing his preferred seat at the bar. He studies the bottles lined up on the back shelf while pulling off his gloves one finger at a time. His voice, when he orders an old fashioned, is soft and slow.

“Not from around here,” Teddy observes when he sets the glass down in front of him. 

“You can tell?” 

“Man like you,” says Teddy, “knows what he likes and sticks to it. You’re not the type to go hunting around for a new bar every time you want a drink.” 

The man chuckles. “Ehh, you’d be surprised, brother.” He leans back, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. “This is a good place you’ve got here. Things turned out well for you, huh?” 

“Better than most, these days.” 

At this comment, the man stares him straight in the eye. “The world could always be worse,” he warns. “If you remember nothing else, Teddy, don’t forget that.” 

* * *

_Down, down, down--_

* * *

The German woman shows up once every couple of months. Sometimes, she’s with her husband and they spend the entire time talking science and scribbling on napkins. But sometimes, she sits alone in a corner and quietly sips at a glass of whisky with her eyes fixed on nothing. 

“What’re you thinking of, tonight?” Teddy asks her once when he brings her drink over. 

He’s expecting a story in line with the usual: past regrets, old friends, lost opportunities. But she surprises him by sighing: “Morality, Mister Deacon.” 

The surge of deja vu sweeps over him so strong that he almost expects her to scold him for asking the same question twice in one night. But this is merely an echo: another one of those tricks his mind plays on him. He’s never had this conversation before. 

So why does it feel like he’s following a script?

“Morality’s a tricky thing, doctor.” 

“That it is,” she muses. “But necessary to consider, now and then.” She lifts her glass in a wry toast. “To the world we live in, with all its complexities and dilemmas to consider. May we be forever grateful to them.” 

He leaves her to her contemplations. The bar dims as the hour grows late enough that the summer sun has finally descended below the city’s horizon. Max shows up in the back room about two minutes before her shift officially starts, which is maybe five minutes before the night crowd comes spilling inside, and then things get really busy for a while. Teddy doesn’t have time to think about the German scientist, the one who didn’t correct him when he called her  _ doctor _ without prompting, and it’s Max who makes the woman a second drink. 

But he does spot the young woman who arrives at the scientist’s table after an hour or so. She kisses her mother on the cheek in greeting before pulling over a chair. As she sits, her eyes sweep across the bar and her face pinches in amazed recognition at the sight of him. 

And maybe he’s a bit curious but he’s also learned better than to rise to the bait. She thinks she knows him? According to the last several years, she’s not the only one. And Teddy’s too busy with the increasingly busy crowd to venture into another conversation he doesn’t understand. 

But he must make some sort of face when the two women finally leave, because Max pauses between taking orders to ask if he’s alright. “Did you know them?” 

“At this rate,” Teddy sighs, “I have no idea.” 

* * *

_Tell me your troubles and doubts_ _  
__Give them everything, inside and out and--_

* * *

“I’ll take a whisky sour, if you please.”

“And a glass of white,” adds a soft voice, “Thank you.”

Teddy glances over automatically. There’s a couple at the end of the bar—older than he remembered, but he’d recognize those two lovebirds anywhere. Same voices, same body language, same way of orienting themselves towards each other as if no one else really matters. 

He’s never seen them before in his life. 

If Teddy had been born a coward, he’d disappear into the back and maybe right out into the alley. Wait outside long enough for the couple to have their drinks and carry on their merry way. Claim later he’d needed a smoke break, if his brother asked. 

He’s not a coward. He’s faced a whole lot of bad things in his life. Faced an alarming amount of strangers that gave him inexplicable nostalgia for things he’s never known. But somehow, that couple at the end of the bar are worse than all the others. They scare the bejeezus out of him. So he lets Nate serve them both, and stays down at the other end of the counter while watching them from the corner of his eye. 

Thing is, he’s pretty sure they’re watching him back. The woman, she keeps glancing over her man’s shoulder at Teddy. She’s gotta be at least twenty years older than Teddy but there’s something about the way she looks at him, like she can see straight past the gruff barkeeper to the most vulnerable parts of his soul. Teddy’s never been interested in older women before but  _ damn, _ there’s just something about her.

And the man, facing the other way—Teddy’s got the distinct impression that man’s been watching him in the reflection of the whisky bottles up against the back wall. 

He glances over to the couple again, a few minutes later. This time though, he’s the one who’s too obvious—the woman catches his gaze and somehow manages to hold it. He feels trapped. And then she smiles, soft and gentle and a little wry, and he realizes that he’s been waiting for this exact smile from this exact person his entire life. 

He tears his eyes away. Finishes wiping dry the glass in his hands. Sets it on the counter. Takes a breath for courage (because somehow, he needs all the courage he can get).

The woman hasn’t let her eyes leave him this whole time. Once Teddy begins his approach, the man turns to watch, too. God, what a creepy couple. 

He reaches their end of the bar. The couple looks up at him, old and wise and also a little wary. Good, Teddy thinks, that’s good. This is  _ his _ establishment, after all. What right have these two strangers to come in here and make him feel like the world is about to end?

So he clears his throat. “What, and I cannot express this enough, the hell do you want?”

The man’s smile widens. “Hello, Deacon,” he says, and Teddy remembers where he’s seen that same grin before. 

“Oh shit,” he realizes, and has to grab the bar to keep from falling over. 

* * *

_Don’t you_

His mind floods with a million memories 

_forget_

of things 

_about_

that never

_me_

happened. 

_Don’t_

_don’t_

_don’t_

_don’t_

* * *

The Deacon Brothers’ Bar is closed for a private event at the turn of the year. Teddy digs out a few of his best bottles of whiskey and lines them up on the bar with the beers. There’s champagne as well, but he’s keeping that in the back until midnight rolls around.

“Explain it again,” says Nate while helping to hang a string of flickering electric lights from the rafters. It’s been his constant refrain ever since he found Teddy literally sobbing his face off while spinning the giant hunting knife around in his hands. Nate had been half convinced Teddy was about to do something dangerous or deranged, and in the end there’d been only way to convince him otherwise. 

Not that convincing him had been all that easy, considering what the explanations involved. 

“It’s about the atmosphere,” says Teddy, and the past iterations of the Scav King collectively cringe within his subconscious to hear that word come out of his own mouth. But the truth of the matter is that Teddy is a softer man than Deacon ever was; Teddy never lost his brother, never slaughtered innocents, never led the West VII. 

But the family he made in those other timelines? Somehow, they’ve found him again. 

Jones arrives first, striding inside at 5pm on the dot--still as conscious of the passing of time as always. Her husband trails behind her with a modified turntable in his arms, while Hannah hefts the crate full of old records. 

“We’ve been collecting them,” Katarina explains to Teddy as the others take the player into the corner to hook up the sound system. “Music can be a window to the past. When I listen to certain songs, I find my memories become more clear.” 

“You ever wish you didn’t remember?” asks Teddy. 

Her smile is bittersweet. “Our past selves were built out of an awful lot of pain, Mister Deacon. There are some nights the memories seem too strong for me. I’ll find a place to be alone with a bottle of whisky, and I will let the lights go dim. I will remember it all: all the different ways we failed, all the people we lost, all the sins we committed. But I will remember also the family we made, the family I have found again, the family I have saved.” 

She lowers her voice and leans close. “And do you not think, Mister Deacon, that our lives today are that much sweeter for all the past lives we sacrificed to get here?” 

“Huh,” says Teddy, because he’s going to have to think on that one for a while. 

From the speakers comes the familiar scratch of a record needle before the strains of a familiar tune begins to warble. Hannah lets out a cheer. As if on cue, the door swings open again: it’s Cole and Cassie, arm in arm, and laughing as Ramse chases them inside. There’s a redhead with Ramse that Deacon vaguely remembers from another time, and a kid that Deacon has no trouble remembering at all. 

But things don’t  _ really _ get going until the final time that bar door slams open with all the force of a hurricane. It is, of course, Jennifer Goines in all her glory: she’s swapped out her black laces for a rainbow of bright colours, along with a whole weight of mardi gras necklaces. She throws up her arms and strikes a pose as everyone calls out their greetings. “What’re you waiting for?” she cries. “Time to party! Bring on the new year!” 

And as Ramse cranks the music up, and the lovebirds start swing dancing on the floor--as the Jones family clinks their beers together and Nate shakes his head in amazement--Jennifer draws close to Teddy and whispers, “Been a long time, Deacon my friend.”

“That it has,” he agrees.

* * *

_When you walk on by  
_ _And you call my name..._


End file.
